Winter Is Coming. What If Roads And Runways Could De-Ice Themselves?

When Chris Tuan was a Department of Defense contractor in the early 1990s, the Air Force asked him to think of something that could de-ice its airfields around the world.

Heavy cargo aircraft were landing on icy runways and skidding off, he says, "so they wanted to find out some innovative way to de-ice the runway."

The challenge? He couldn’t use any salt or de-icing chemicals because of the damage they can do to concrete.

Tuan had studied how to use steel fibers to reinforce concrete. He decided to embed them in the runways and run a low-voltage electric current through the steel to heat the concrete, so the snow and ice can just melt off the surface.

"Think of it as a heating blanket," he says.

Alan Yu

http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/10/01/553756878/winter-is-coming-what-if-roads-and-runways-could-de-ice-themselves?sc=17&f=1007&utm_source=iosnewsapp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=app

Thanks to David Nelson for sharing